Rob, I'd like to commend your patience in answering to the quickly judged criticisms as you have. Hopefully it will help steer a few unknowing readers in the right direction who might otherwise believe the worse about Baratza. Any company working to sell a quality product at an affordable price is going to have problems to deal with now and then. Baratza has proven time and again to stand behind their grinders and take care of the problems, and their customers, without hesitation. If the hundreds of people who used Baratza grinders and never had a problem posted about never having a problem Mark would probably need a new server.

rob, if i , like you had not have had the issues with now 2- preciso's, this would be a mute topic for me. we all begin on this espresso path, the learning curve is an adventure. you had a beginning , years ago. you seem to scold a bit with some of your responses as if this is an elite club. well, it is not. it is an open forum for beginners and longtime home barista's. i do appreciate the knowledge you have, but i also appreciate the responses from other long time cg posters who are not as course grind as you, at times. sometimes i think we sit too long at these pc's. have a nice day.

Iamwriter defends the preciso like a knight to the queen. He must know the owners personally. This gives everyone looking to buy a new grinder opinions from all sides. However, look at all the forums and decide for yourself. Ask questions? The company, Baratza, is all of two or three people and I have spoken to the designer of the Preciso personally.

They attempted to make a $1000 grinder in a $300 package. Very difficult. They have several grinders at different price points. There is a reason for this. Go to the website and hit the support link. They have support documents for every grinder. The Vario has about 3 links. The Preciso....well, you scroll and scroll down the page full of support links to make repairs. What does that say?

They replaced many many grinders over the past year with a redesign. Why? Because they knew how crappy the original design was. The gearbox and other plastic parts were failing at a gigantic rate requiring a major overhaul that you cannot do at home. To save the company from embarrassment they spent tons of capital refurbishing the design. i.e. Great customer service. The new gearbox is nice and the burr rings won't fail as quickly but they are still plastic. If you rotate the grind from coarse to fine frequently this action puts a lot of pressure on a tiny screw that holds yet another plastic adjustment ring in place allowing you to make the grind even finer. Though it is supposed to do this without fail it increases your wear on the plastic. The pressure exerted on the adjustment is too great for the design.

To get technical, as the plastic heats up, during grind, the pressure exerted on it makes it expand and contract leading to inconsistant grind. The burr rings are held in place by 3 tiny plastic flanges. These flanges warp quickly allowing them to slide back and forth. This warping effect will require constant replacing of the rings that hold the burrs in place. The parts are inexpensive and if you don't mind opening the thing up every few months then it would be a lot cheaper to go that way vs. getting a $1000 grinder. I believe the Vario which is sub-$500 doesn't have this design. I highly recommend bucking up the extra couple hundred to save yourself the headaches.

I would recommend Baratza as a company but not their Preciso. Especially if you want consistent espresso grind quality without a lot of labor intensive maintenance.

Could the problems or lack of problems be related to how we use the Preciso? I add a dose, grind, and clear the grinder as opposed to leaving beans in the hopper. Does that make a difference as to the grinder longevity? I am not asking about the pros and cons of leaving beans in the hopper wrt beans freshness, dryness, etc. Just trying to see if we use the Preciso differently. Leaving beans in the hopper is always starting the grind against resistance and perhaps working the parts harder. In addition, I basically leave it set for espresso, so there is little adjustment and movement of the mechanism, and when so, it is usually empty.

It would be interesting to see if grinders are failing if the hopper is emptied and if the settings are left for espresso.

I think it's fair to say that going back and forth from drip to espresso everyday is going to wear out the adjustment rings in the Preciso quicker. With my 2 years plus with mine I have gone through three rings, and probably will be looking at another one soon. However, except for the time I tried to grind a very light roasted coffee for espresso it has been a very gradual slope of my adjustment having to go finer and finer until it could go no more.

That all being said, is there another grinder out there can produce espresso to french press at the quality of the Preciso at any price class? I don't think so and then to top it off it's only $300.00. While at times I do get frustrated with the grinder, if you are looking for a grinder to be your everything there is no where else to look and at 8 dollars for a replacement collar every year or so it's not much. Just think you have to replace your gasket in your espresso machine once a year and they run about the same price.

I can only second everything being said here. I own a Preciso, and even though it is over a year old it hasn't been used that much. The gearbox is shot. I brew mostly pour over and an occasional espresso. The gearbox failed without doing a lot of adjustment. I just wish I had used the machine more often so that it would have failed in the warranty period. What a piece of crap! I'll just chalk it up to a $300 lesson/mistake.

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